The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1887-01-29
so TENDER-HEARTED!
The Young Turkeys Dream and
It's Realization.

LII was one year ago InlS 1nankSSiV-
ing Day. One year is not long time
to a'man-indeed, it is too often very
short time, especially when it is looked
back upon but to the little brown tur-
key, fat and sleek, who was shut in
from the world behind the freckled
shell of turkey-egg only one year
ago, it was a very long time-almost
an age, in fact. The turkey was laid
in straw-stack in the farther end of
the big field back of the barn. In the
side Of this stack, so high up that it
could look over the hat of the tallest
followed out her nest. Within its
cozy sides she deposited an even dozen
freckled eggs, and there she patiently
sat five long weeks, warming the eggs
into life. 1t was ON Thanksgiving Day
one year ago that the last one of the
eggs cracked its shell, and from within
peeked out the subject of this sketch
as round, as downy, as bright-eyed and
inquisitive turkey-chick as ever
looked out of shell upon this great,
wide, selfish, hungry world of ours.
The early life of turkey-chick is
not an eventful one. Its world is
hemmed in by the rail-fence which in
closes the barn-yard, and until its
wings are strong enough to carry its
owner over these confines into the
pasture beyond and up to the lower
limb of the old apple-tree, where its
elders nightly roost, it has little oppor-
tunity for mental Improvement, if, in
deed, it has that ambition. Civiliza-
tion, we regret to say, has not
advanced far enough at the present
age to provide Kindergartens for in
FAINT turkeys, and so this friend of ours
reached the balmy days of early
spring without an idea in it's little
noddle other than filling its little outlet
with the latest worms and the biggest
grains of corn as often as it had q
chance. BY this time, however, its
angular frame-and all turkeys are
angular, we may remark, as every am
ateur carver has observed, at some
time or another, to his discontinue
had filed out into something like pro-
+ portions, and its scrawny wings haG
covered themselves with feathers
I broad and long, until at last it tool
its place among the elders, very much
as boys drift into manhood. acquire
mustaches and a right to vote-quitt
as a matter of course.
AS spring passed into summer, thi.
turkey of ours began to take notice o
its surroundings. 1t learned to know
the gray-haired old farmer who Ownet
the place from the tall and broad
shouldered friedman, and the ben
and angular farmers wife from he
pretty, plump, red-cheeked daughter
1t knew the latter particularly well
because it was she who fed it when
was too young to feed ITSELF 1t like,
her, too, this friend of ours-for graft
tude is not alone confined to children
and story books-and when hand
some young man from the city chance,
to come that way one day, and rent
room in the old farmhouse for week
while he ished the neighborin
streams, it noticed that, too. This
however, was not all that was notice
by our observing little friend. 1t nc
ticed also that the young man from tn
city paid much more attention to tn
pretty daughter than he did to the fist
ing, and that she. in turn, gave him MOI
of her time than she did the turkeys
W1en CnlS week was over dnOIneT Oh
was begun, and another and yet al
other, until September found the youn
city-man still at the farmhouse, an
the friendship between the youn
couple had grown with each day.
our little friend was not surprised, OF
pleasant evening, to hear from its perC
on the lower limb of the old apple tree
conversation which was not intendt
even for turkey sears. Underline ire
close to its rugged bark, was a rust
+ seat. On this seat were the lovers, fl
such they had grown to be,
Mary" said the city-man, shall
speak to your fatherP"
Eyes, DEAR" replied the pref
daughter.
"Whenpn
whenever you please"
Il is true that this was not much
hear; but, such as it was, it gave o
tender-hearted turkey strange feeliI
of pain, in the expression of which
made such commotion that furth
conversation was at an end.
The next day our friend contided
suspicious to a shrewd old turkey-co